


Pavane pour un réveil (for an awakening)

by circ_bamboo



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Community: st_respect, F/M, Main Event 4, PikeOne_Bingo, Team NewOldSkool
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-02
Updated: 2011-05-02
Packaged: 2017-10-18 22:22:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/193935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/circ_bamboo/pseuds/circ_bamboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pike and Boyce swap bodies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pavane pour un réveil (for an awakening)

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to experience this fic in its proper format, please find a copy of Gabriel Fauré's _Pavane_ in F-sharp minor, Op. 50, to listen to while it reading. Thanks to boosette for beta work.

**2266**

Christopher Pike, Fleet Captain for Starfleet (a purely ceremonial title), knew something was wrong the minute that the white-noise sensation of transporting cleared from his ears. For one thing, he could feel his hands and smooth metal under one of them, and he realized a moment later that he was looking at the side of his own head.

"Oh," he said, and heard Philip Boyce, his former CMO. He looked at his wrists, saw captain's stripes on blue above surgeon's hands, not young, short nails scrubbed meticulously clean, and sucked in a breath.

"Something wrong, Dr. Boyce?" the transporter tech asked. She looked up, fresh-faced and shiny, not someone he recognized.

"No, no; nothing's wrong," Chris said. "Are you okay, Captain Pike?" he asked.

The light on the chair blinked once. He really, really hoped it was Phil in there, but he needed to talk to him in private to figure that out.

"We'll be going," Chris said, and he left one hand on Phil-in-his-body's chair as it rolled down the ramp, off the transporter pad, and towards the door. "As you were, Ensign."

The tech saluted, and returned to her console.

Chris left the transporter room and walked into the hallway. His knees didn't feel quite right, and his center of balance was in a different place, but he had the chair to lean on and not very many people passing by. One or two stopped to greet him, and he murmured hellos.

He had some idea of where his personal quarters were located on Starbase XI, and followed hallways and turbolifts mostly by pre-accident memory until he found them—right next door to the CMO's quarters, just off of Sickbay. The doors opened for him easily, and once he wheeled Phil inside, he knelt in front of him and said, "Phil, are you in there?"

The light blinked once.

"It looks like there was a transporter malfunction and we swapped bodies."

The light blinked once, again.

Chris took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He concentrated on how the air felt in his lungs, how hard the floor felt under his knees, various aches and pains in Phil's body. The skin on his forearms prickled, even under the unfamiliar tunic; he was cold. A faint tingle across the back of one hand turned into an itch, and he scratched it absently."Okay." He opened his eyes and looked at Phil—his body—directly. "Do you mind if we wait a few hours before going back to the transporter room and getting this fixed?"

Two blinks.

"It's all right if we wait?" He wanted to make this very, very clear; the only thing worse than being stuck in that body was being stuck in it when one wasn't supposed to be there.

One blink.

"Good," Chris said. "Good. I—can I leave you here for a while?"

One blink.

"All right." He got up, went next door—Phil's quarters opened for him as easily as his own did—and stood in the middle of the room. He didn't have much time. Transporter accidents didn't have a time limit, but it was _Phil_ , his best friend, who followed him on the _Enterprise_ , and then to Starbase XI. Phil, who stood by him even after he was reduced to a blinking light in a chair. As miserable as it was to be trapped inside that body and that chair, and as much as it was literally driving him crazy, he would never inflict that on Phil permanently.

If he'd gotten swapped with someone else, though, he might have made a different choice. Maybe.

However, he had a couple hours and there was at least one thing he had to do. Sitting down at Phil's console, he asked the computer to locate the U.S.S. _Yorktown_ , and it answered with a distance just barely within the limits of long-range communication. With only a moment of hesitation, he pressed the button to send a message directly to the ship's captain.

His hands shook as, about five minutes later, the captain of the _Yorktown_ accepted the incoming communication and he turned the voice and video communication both on.

The face of the _Yorktown's_ captain, formerly his first officer on the _Enterprise_ , Number One. "Dr. Boyce? To what do I owe this pleasure?"

Chris's breath caught in his throat. She was as beautiful as always, hair still dark, eyes still light blue, face unlined. She was also waiting politely for him to speak. "Ah. Captain One," he said. "There's been a transporter incident."

"Oh," she said. "What sort?"

"It was a body swap," Chris said. He tried to say more, but couldn't, swallowing thickly.

"Ah," Captain One said. "And who was involved?"

"Captain Pike and Dr. Boyce," he said, resorting to the third person.

In between one heartbeat and the next, she figured it out. "Chris?" she said.

He nodded.

She sucked in a breath, and then looked away from the screen, tapping something out of the camera's field. A notice flashed across the bottom of the screen that it had gone to an ultra-secure private channel, and he tapped "accept" to complete the circuit on his end.

"I'll only be in communication range for the next five or seven minutes," she said, looking back at the camera. "How—how are you?"

She never stuttered, never said anything other than exactly what she meant to say; something burned in the back of his eyes at the fact that he made her lose her precision. "I don't know how to answer that," he said after a moment.

"All right," she said.

"How are you?" he asked.

"Fine. I'm fine," she said. "The ship is fine. I hear the _Enterprise_ is doing well under Captain Kirk, and Commander Spock is quite an impressive first officer."

He knew all that, actually; Phil would ask the computer to read Chris reports about various people he knew. It didn't matter what she said, though; hearing her voice was more than enough. "That's good," he said. "Very good. I'd hoped they'd both go on to do great things—both the men and my ship."

"Yes," she said, and stopped. She looked at him, eyes wide. "Chris—what's it like?"

He didn't bother to ask her what she meant. "Dull, mostly," he said. "Frustrating."

"Yes," she said. "I can imagine that it would be. Do you—" She paused and pressed her lips together. "Do you want to stay?"

Chris laughed harshly. "Phil asks me that at least once a week. My answer is always the same: one blink. Yes, I'd like to stay." He lived for the moments when he could hear about the people he considered his: Number One, Spock, Jim Kirk, a few others. If he slipped away, thanks to one of Phil's hypos, he'd never know how the story ended.

"I don't know how to be around you anymore," she said, after another few seconds of silence.

"I know," he said. "I don't blame you. Most days I'm not certain that I'm even myself."

"I can't see you. I can't," she said, and looked away.

"I know," he said. "Don't. Remember me as I was a year ago, or remember me as Phil if you must, but don't—"

"I won't," she said. "If you won't hate me."

"I couldn't hate you," he said. "I love you." He'd told her more than once, back when he was—whole—but it had never been easy. Not this easy. He felt like he could say it a thousand more times. Maybe it was being in Phil's body, although he laughed at himself mentally for even thinking that.

"I love you too, Chris," she said in a rush. "No one but you."

"Oh, One," he said.

A hail sounded at his door, and he ignored it temporarily. "How much longer do we have?" he asked her.

She looked at the side of the screen. "Not long. A minute, perhaps."

He nodded. "Okay." Licking his lips, he said, "I love you. I miss you. The happiest times of my life, I've realized, were when we were on the _Enterprise_ together. I'm sorry I never told you that before."

"You didn't have to," she said. "I knew. And it was the same for me, Chris."

He nodded again. "I'd hoped so." A deep breath, and he continued. "I don't know that I'll ever be able to do this again. I don't think I'll ever see you again. So—so this is goodbye, I guess."

Number One nodded, her eyes wide and bright with tears. A single drop slipped out and trailed down her left cheek, and she dashed it away with quick fingers. "Goodbye, Chris."

"Goodbye, One."

The transmission cut off, and he erased the logs carefully and methodically, until no trace of his conversation could be found by anyone with less than Commander Spock's skills.

The hail sounded again, and he said, "Computer, who is it?"

"It is Ensign Joules."

"Tell her I'm busy," he said, and shut down direct communications for the next hour.

He didn't rush; he had a little bit of time. The first thing he did was take a shower, a real water shower, enjoying the sensations. The droplets beat on his skin, and he turned up the temperature as hot as he could stand. Phil's body felt very different than his—older, obviously, and different-textured, as well as shorter and slighter. Still, though, he shampooed his hair—Phil's hair—twice just for the joy of it.

Next he went to the mess and ordered steak, asparagus, a baked potato, and a large piece of chocolate cake. Taking it back to his room—Phil's room—he ate it slowly, savoring each bite. If he had more time, he'd have ordered Andorian curry and Tellarite truffles and dumplings and everything else he enjoyed before, but he only got one meal, and it was going to be steak.

It wasn't the best steak he'd ever had, and the potato was topped with something that bore little resemblance to actual butter. The chocolate cake, though: someone had labored over it, and each layer was moist and perfect, the frosting a perfect blend of rich creaminess and dark chocolate. He lingered over every last crumb, and finally set his fork down.

Last, he went to one of the observation decks, and watched the stars go by slowly for a good half-hour, soaking in the way they looked when his vision was perfect, when he could turn his head and choose where to look. It would have to last him for the rest of his lifetime, he thought, and then resolutely pushed the despair that loomed into the back of his mind. Time enough to deal with that later.

He returned to his quarters exactly two hours after he'd left Phil there, and sat on the chair Phil used when he was in the room. "Phil," he said. "I hope you're all right."

One blink.

"I commed Number One," he said, conversationally. "We talked. Said goodbye. She won't be promising to come by and then manufacturing an excuse not to anymore. She won't be coming by at all."

One blink.

"I didn't do anything with your body that you wouldn't do, except maybe eat dessert with lunch."

One blink, followed by two.

Chris didn't know what that meant, so he continued. "Thanks, Phil. I mean it."

One blink.

"For everything, not just today."

One blink.

"Okay. Let's go."

He stood, straightened his tunic, twitching his cuffs into line, and stood behind the chair, touching the back to set it into motion. This time, he left his hand on the back as a grounding point, not for stability, and took the long route back to the transporter room. Starbase XI wasn't the _Enterprise_ , but he'd still been there for a while and had commanded it briefly, and it still felt like Starfleet. Trailing his fingers over the walls one last time, he stepped into the transporter room just behind Phil and said, "Ensign, there's been a transporter accident."


End file.
